After Aang
by Unauthored
Summary: As the title hopefully suggests the story takes place in an alternate universe, Aang dies fighting the Fire Lord. This is a few years later.  the rest of the events of Sozins Commet still happened ie the fleet and Azula's little problem
1. Chapter 1

It's pretty amazing what the mind will notice even during the most fatal of situations, for instance here I was my platoon about to be wiped out by a company of fire nation veterans and I notice a woman in blue running towards the rear of the fire nation column I shook my head, no way that we could do anything for her except perhaps pull the fire nation away from her. Besides we needed to fall back before they completely encircled us. "Fall back to the river!" I yelled "We'll make our stand there, and show these bloody morons how much it costs to buy riverside property from the earth kingdom!" There wasn't much of a cheer, but I could see that the men were happy to stop running, to stop being hounded, and finally fight a fight on our own terms.

Even if there wasn't much more than a fool's hope that we could win.

As we reached the river we turned more or less as one to face the oncoming fire nation soldiers. As I turned I realized that they were no longer organized, they had seen us running and thought that they were chasing a defeated enemy. My heart soared, if they attacked in that disorganized fashion we might actually stand a chance to defeat them, or at least rout them momentarily. But my hopes died as a wall of fire sprung up in front of the advancing men, the wall lasted only long enough for their ranking officer to get the men organized before it faded to nonexistence. I swore "Sorry guys their officer is good. Avoid engaging him if you can, just leave him to me." Truth be told I wasn't at all sure I could take him, but I wasn't about to let my men go up against a monster like that.

The Fire nation let loose three specifically timed volleys of fire, timed so that we wouldn't be able to harass them unless we wanted to catch a fire ball to the face, and charged. "COVER!" I yelled bringing a slab of stone up to protect myself and those near me. I saw Lee and Chin go down in the first volley but no one else was hit as the other two landed among us like flaming rain. I didn't notice any other casualties for a while after that, but then again I was a little distracted fighting for my life against the Fire Nation infantry.

I lifted a rock and sent it crushing into the ribs of some fire bender who had a few of my men pinned down. _Power of fire comes from the breath. _I thought _Well good luck breathing now sucker._Then I noticed the girl in blue again. She was still coming towards the battle, but now she was much closer. I could actually make out more than just the color of her clothes. She couldn't have been more than 19! If she didn't turn around soon she'd be right in the thick of the melee, where she'd probably die or be captured like the rest of my men. I couldn't let that happen and tried desperately to get her attention and warn her away from the battle.

I succeeded in the first matter only, I got her attention and she looked up and met my eyes. It was then that I noticed for the first time her expression. It wasn't emotional, or scared. It was a look of sheer confidance. She was running headlong into a confrontation with almost a full company of veteran Fire Nation soldiers and she wasn't the least bit worried. She was either really stupid, or knew something I didn't.

She arrived at a location that she evidently deemed close enough, and planted her feet preparing to join the battle. In the half second before she set herself into action I saw an emotion deeper than her confidance, it was something cold and lethal. She gave a slight smile and my blood nearly ran cold. At that moment I was just happy that I wasn't about to fight her.

She moved gracefully and made short work of the company. She used the river and swept them all up at once. Down to the man. I was stunned, completely immobilized by the awesome display of power. She hadn't just used the water from the river; she had picked up the entire river and smashed the company with it, sweeping them back up and depositing them back into the dry river bed before the watter from upstream had a chance to so much as rewet the mud. She fixed a lock of hair that had come out of place during the… battle was the wrong word, movement fit more. And walked slowly towards me. After the majority of the Fire Nation had surfaced she froze the river with one breath and a downward motion of her right hand.

"Are…Are you?" I stammered trying vainly to get my mouth to say the name of the hero who had to be standing before me.

She smiled, and this time I melted, the smile was sweet and warm, but it also seemed the slightest bit sad which made it all the more beautiful. "Yes. I am. The Fire Nation will regret the day that they killed Avatar Aang. We will win this war." As she said this her face set in grave determination. I heard the low rumbling call of a beast I'd never heard before and a large shadow passed over head. "I must go soon, Sokka will be unbearably annoyed with me if we're late to his precious general's staff meeting, but first you have wounded. Allow me to help." I nodded speechless, my men, my platoon, and my life were saved. And all by someone I'd never thought I'd meet. The Ice Queen herself, Katarra.


	2. Chapter 2

This is part two of my AU, and unlike the first; this one includes an author's forward! *Fanfare and applause* Right, so uh comment and critique if you want (because I would like you to) I suppose you should suspect more, though I only really have any clue what Zuko and Sokka are doing, but I find this story fun so there shall be more! Also I own nothing, not the language, nor the world/characters (that could have flowed better, but who doesn't like the word "nor", I think it was a fair trade off) right then now the story begins

The patchwork collection of rebels was stalwartly standing their ground. The Fire magistrate still wasn't sure where they'd acquired their weapons or the training in their use, for a while there they had been a thorn in his side. However now there was no chance for their victory, or even escape.

The magistrate reclined on the rich couch he'd had his men bring up for him so that he could watch the battle in comfort from the command tent, and thought himself clever. After all he congratulated himself it had been his ruse that had brought the rebels out into the open like this. Now the long game of cat and mouse had been brought to a satisfactory and predictable end. He signaled for the advance to begin, and picked up his far viewer so that he could get a better view of the terrified faces of the rebels. Served them right for trying to cause trouble in his district.

Suddenly a girl litterarly poped up from out of the ground in front of the army. The magistrate almost choked on his wine and dropped his wine. He scrambled to pick it up and focused it on the girl. She wasn't a very impressive figure, she couldn't have been over 17 and was short even for her age, her clothes were ruffled, her hair unkempt, and she didn't even seem to be wearing shoes. But there was something about her, something about her face. At first the magistrate thought that it was the way she was smirking. But eventually the magistrate settled upon what was really wrong, her eyes. There was something off about them, they looked like they were unfocused, or perhaps the wrong color. That was it they were gray.

This time the magistrate really did choke on his wine. After his coughing had subsided he frantically tried to get his commanders to stop the assault, but was informed that it was too late to turn the advance around without serious loss of life. Not to mention looking weak in front of the rebels. He was assured that one girl could not make that much of a difference is a battle. He was assured that the girl could not be who he thought she was, as she was last sighted much too far away to have gotten to the battle field within the next week much less the last five minutes. The magistrate sank back into his couch and picked up the far viewer, this time in resignation.

As he brought the cylinder of glass and steel to his eyes he saw the girl turn to make a short remark to the rebels who laughed. The magistrate sighed and drank deeply from his wine. The girl closed he eyes, raised her arms fingers out stretched palms down and concentrated. The Fire Nation men were closing fast, perhaps they would be able to close and limit the amount of large scale bending the girl would be able to do. But as the two armies were but fifty feet away, the girl's smirk widened and she clenched her fists and brought them back in towards her body while stomping once on the ground. The effect was immediate and terrifying, the ground shook and a huge amount of dust flew into the air, completely obscuring the magistrate's forces from his view.

Dropping the now useless far viewer the magistrate studied his military advisors. Their expressions ranged from jaw dropping shock in the elder of his staff to unconcealed admiration amongst the younger. To be sure it was a mind blowing display of sheer power, one worthy of both admiration and shock. The magistrate turned back to the dust cloud and saw that the rebel army was still standing where it had been, but the girl was gone. She had entered the smoke alone! What hubris. Surely there was no way that she could defeat all of those men by herself. The magistrate tried desperately to observe the battle. But all that he could see was the near constant flashes of fire in the dust cloud and the occasional bolder that came wizzing out of the dust. While he couldn't see anything he could hear a lot. He could hear the sounds of his men fighting desperately to stave off this monster of a bender, he could hear the order of the army breaking down quickly. But more than that he could feel the earth being reshaped.

The fight was over in short order; the girl had routed or subdued nearly all of his men in under an hour. His royal guards had almost attempted to fight her off as she had come to take him and his council prisoner, but she had swatted them aside in no more than three moves. Now a prisoner of the rebels whose defeat he had left his palace to watch the magistrate looked out over the ruined and broken landscape and wondered if it was he himself who had been caught in a trap. A shadow passed overhead and a man jumped from a flying bison. The man rolled as he hit the ground and strode over to magistrate his hand resting lightly on his sword. A lemur flew down after him and landed lightly on his shoulder.

"I was wondering how the girl even knew that this battle was going to happen, but now that I know you're in charge it all makes sense." The magistrate growled at the man

The man replied with an easy shrug and a smile. "What can I say, everyone helps with the war effort in their own way. The girls do their massive battle winning destruction thing, Zuko does his revolution thing, and I outsmart you guys."

The girl returned from digging huge holding prisons for the magistrate's captured men and greated the man with an insult and a punch. "Took you long enough to get here, you didn't even have time to stand around awkwardly and be useless in the fight."

"Speaking of which, don't you think you over did it a little?" The man said rubbing his arm and gesturing to the wonton destruction that was the battlefield "People have to live here you know. Fix it while I talk to these guys about the terms of their surrender."

"But Sokka!" the girl protested

"No buts, I mean it toph. Put this field back to the way it was. Or at least make it habitable again. Now then" He said turning to the magistrate and his men "I believe we should get to discussing the terms of your surrender, I'm thinking something along the lines of 'Unconditional', but we'll iron out those details in here." He tossed aside the cover flap of the command tent and strode in to recline on the magistrates couch. "Oh, you even brought me a couch, how thoughtful."


	3. Chapter 3

" YOU! You have to let me go after **him**! Everything will go back to how it was! I just have to hunt him down, I just have to kill him. I'll hunt her down too. And once they're dead it'll all be ok. I just have to kill them, you just have to let me! It's their fault everything is like this. If I kill them I'll go back to the way I was! All you have to do is let me out there. Just let me hunt them down." I watched the girl's pleas slowly lose their energy from a respectful distance. As the girl's cries faded I turned my gaze to the throne of the Phoenix King. But the silhouette visible through the fire was as impassive as ever. The girl seeing this fell to her knees muttering a continuation of her plea to the Phoenix King, only this time it was directed at me.

The audience was now more or less over so I walked up and put my arm around the crumpled girl, I softened my voice and said "Come princess, let's go home. We can play Pi Cho when we get there. This time I might actually be able to give you a challenge." She huddled up against me and clung to me like a small child clinging to her mother during a storm. Then I turned to her father and said frankly and honestly. "She is getting better you know. And she won't need to stay in my care for much longer, and when she no longer needs me I will not be able to keep her." Again the silhouette failed to respond in any real way, but I could tell that the Phoenix King had heard my and accepted the information.

I shuddered and put my hand on the girl's head stroking her, and trying to calm her and quiet her muttering. With a traitor for a brother and uncle, an absent mother, and a father like this it was no wonder the princess was in dire straits. And from what I'd learned her friends had all betrayed her too, I whispered soft comforts to her and vowed to myself that I'd never leave this poor girl or treat her like some kind of a monster. She was right, whoever these people were they'd done this to her, she deserved revenge.

And I was going to help her get it.


End file.
